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Article-Anger, The Unwanted Emotion?

This article is for all you frustrated philosophers out there. ANGER, is a self-provoking word. I hope this article makes you STOP and THINK!

Like the bee’s sting, anger is self destructive and when it explodes, verbal and physical violence often ensues.

This emotion makes you feel miserable and depressed. Heated arguments, trying to make people understand your position, put a physical and mental strain on you. It can cause ulcers, high-blood pressure and heart trouble. If you can eliminate it, in the majority of instances, you will keep your sanity, your health and your happiness.

What is anger, anyway? It is strong feelings arouse by injury, injustice or wrongs, real or supposed. It makes us feel unworthy and guilty, it pulls us down from our true level as human beings. It is a wrong choice most of the time.

When anger is part of you, too much of the time, you concentrate on your grievances with life. To ease this you must concentrate on your successes, then you will gain confidence and feel good.

Like all emotions anger is the result of thinking, in this case wrong thinking. It comes from frustration, when we fail to achieve goals or satisfy basic desires.

Everyone feels frustrated, now and again, because we are imperfect, and the world is complex. But we don’t want destructive emotions to follow our frustration. We want constructive thinking to follow.

Annoyance, irritation, and disappointment are feelings that you very likely will continue to experience, since the world will never be completely the way you want it to be!

So you must convince yourself that anger weakens you and makes frustration unbearable. It attracts the wrong conditions, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. While constructive thoughts, confidence and courage attract the right conditions.

***

Now, all this is well and good! But, there is such a thing as Righteous Anger.

If people abuse you or a loved one, and if a child is bullied, anger maybe all you’ve got! It’s a defence mechanism. If you don’t use it, you have to cringe away.

A good burst of anger can clear the air. Are we not supposed to get angry at things like cruelty, injustice or stupidity?

I once heard an interesting story on how to channel your anger. A man got a very abusive letter from an acquaintance. The man was so enraged that he was on the brink of feeling sick!

“ What shall I do about it?” he asked his wife.

“ Write and tell him what you think of him. Get it all out of your system on paper.”

He did so.

His wife read the result.

“ Very good,” she said. “ Now do you feel better?”

“ Much better, thank you. Now, I’ll send it,” said the man.

“ Oh, don’t send it. It’s done it’s job. It has released your anger. Now tear up both letters and throw them away,” said his wife, smiling.

So, the elimination of anger, when you don’t need it, is going to lift a weight from your body and mind. You are going to enjoy life, relieved of tension and strain.

4 thoughts on “Article-Anger, The Unwanted Emotion?”

Anger is a perfectly natural, positive and life enriching emotion. It develops in infants at around the same time as cognitive individualtion and many experts believe that without it cognitive and intellectual development are stunted.

Anger can potentially mobilize psychological resources and boost determination fuelling positive and proactive behaviour. It is not somehow an enemy to thought as Dave suggests – in fact, it facilitates positive thought. And moreover, if an emotion was “unneeded” then surely evolution would have dealt with it?

In a world full of despots, religious bigots, bullies and tyrants we NEED to get angry. We need to get angry more often, not less.